


Unexpected Turns

by princessofmind



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shop, Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 13:41:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessofmind/pseuds/princessofmind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You went in to college with a girlfriend and a plan.  You graduated with a boyfriend and a coffee shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected Turns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cul-de-sac (InkSkratches)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkSkratches/gifts).



Six years ago, you'd started college with a steady girlfriend and a plan.

Now, you're standing in the foyer of your small, two bedroom ranch-style house, jingling your keys while your boyfriend makes an absolute wreck of the living room looking for his watch. He took it off when he laid down to nap after finishing off the last of your store-bought Thanksgiving turkey, and you'd be willing to bet every penny in your bank account that he'd knocked it between the cushions when he rolled like a alligator in his sleep. It made him sleeping anywhere but the bed absolutely hysterical to spectate, but also kind of a pain because stuff was always getting broken (like the lamp his mother had given them as a housewarming present or the little blown-glass dragon named Spitfire from your last vacation together).

"You know, we could just stay here like normal people," you commented absentmindedly, twirling the keys by your Chain Chomp keychain.

He groaned unhappily from the living room, and you hear the sound of heavy leather couch cushions slapping against concrete floor. "We go through this every year, Sol," he whined. "We gotta get everything decorated before we open for the Black Friday crowd. The decorations only stay up for like a month, so I wanna make sure we get the most out of it."

And just like every year, you heave a huge sigh and lean against the door, looking at the little ceramic bowl that he painted (terribly) to put in the entry way to hold your keys and spare change. A moment later, there's a cry of triumph, and he's hurrying in to the foyer while wrapping the thin leather band around his wrist. You open the door for him and he shuffles by distractedly, making sure it was flitted to the right tightness because it had been a birthday gift and it wasn't quite broken in the way he liked yet. "Did you put the cushions back on the couch?" you ask despite already knowing the answer.

The withering look he gives you makes pushing him out of the way and almost in to the snowdrift just off the porch very easy, and the lock clicks quietly behind you before you move to join him in the car. It's an old SUV, deep evergreen and littered with stupid stickers all over the back (half are his, half are yours) and older than your relationship, but it runs like a dream and can heat up to tropical temperatures in two minutes flat (which is very handy during the incredibly long Michigan winters).

It takes exactly six minutes to get to the shop, located in the heart of downtown right on the corner next door to an attorney's office. There's snow piled in front of the door and on top of the sign, and once the car is parked and you're on your way in, you reach up and smack the elegant hanging wood to shake the white stuff free. It falls on Eridan's head and down the back of his coat, and with a cry of dismay he digs the snow out of his collar and shoves it in your face.

He bought the shop when he was a junior and you were a senior. Although he had a knack for literature and languages, something about the school environment just didn't mix with him. He didn't like being told what books to read or how to speak; even the most elegant languages fell snarled and growled from his lips, and it was so beautiful and foreign you kissed him quiet only to demand he say something else. Teachers hated his brazen attitude and refusal to compromise, and it was only his parent's money that kept him enrolled in the first place. Half the work he didn't do, and the other half he just did the way he wanted. It was appallingly charming.

One day, when you were working on a lab write-up for your chemistry class, he came in to your shared apartment, sat down a single, tarnished brass key and declared "I bought a coffee shop". You'd thought he was nuts; he was from the wealthiest family in the city, had never worked a day in his life, loathed getting up before noon and hated getting his clothes dirty. It was mind boggling to think of him dropping out of college to have clothes constantly espresso-stained and wake up at the crack of dawn to serve the drowsy masses.

But he took to it like a duck to water. He decorated the entire place himself, spending hours in thrift stores and bargain hunting online for pieces that reflected his style and the kind of furniture _he'd_ like to see in a shop he went in to. The paint on the tables was artfully chipped, there were no two chairs that looked the same, and the corduroy couch and two overstuffed arm chairs were always occupied by drowsy university students looking for a quick nap between classes and god bless him, Eridan never kicked them out. He bought a gorgeous display case that you had no clue what he'd use for, only to discover that he could bake pastries that the angels themselves would kill to partake of.

It had eaten at you in a way you hadn't expected, to sit in your stuffy classrooms and stare at a computer screen all day when he'd come home exhausted and achy and _alive_ , smelling like flour and coffee and thick, creamy icing. So when you graduated, your degree went up on the wall and you picked up your apron and joined him, learning to mix drinks with the best of them so he could spend more time in the back working his magic in the ovens. Sometimes you wondered how this became your life, living in a too-small house with one of the most obnoxious men you'd ever met and working full-time at a coffee shop, but then he'll bring you cranberry mini-muffins and feed them to you while you froth the milk, eyes squinted with his smile as your lips brush the tips of his fingers, and while it's nothing you expected it's more than you could ever have hoped to have.

The boxes full of Christmas decorations are shoved in the very back of the storage closet (not the supply closet), tinkling faintly when you carry them out to place on the various available surfaces. It always starts with just you, because he has to put the Christmas cookies in the oven or else they won't be done and cool before the first shoppers head out for the door busters. You step outside with one of the chairs to wrap the greenery and a bright red velvet bow around the sign, making sure "Coffee Bug" was still clearly legible in Eridan's gorgeous, loopy scrawl. The lights in the window come next, only the white twinkling variety because the store already has so much color, bright blue and red and yellow lights would just look garish. Tomorrow morning, Nepeta will come in and paint the windows; this year's theme is going to be Toy Land, drawing inspiration from the Island of Lost Toys in the Rudolph movie.

By the time you're dragging the artificial tree out of the closet, Eridan has finished with the baking and comes out smelling like cinnamon and with more than a little flour staining his sweater. You know he would kill for a real tree, one that would fill the store with the scent of pine, but it would be too much trouble to keep up with and some people aren't fond of the smell so instead you have the nicest artificial tree money can buy and tuck it in the corner next to the couch. He helps you hang the ornaments, reverently brushing the crystal icicles from his grandparents and rolling his eyes at your Star Wars ornament collection. The two of you don't bother to decorate the house, and instead put all your personal ornaments on the tree, including the ones of your little god daughter Meenah and the slightly chipped eskimo and his polar bear friends that you bought for him the first Christmas you spent together.

You end up with a rumpled gold bow stuck to the top of your head and he's wearing a fake popcorn strand as a necklace, humming quietly to himself as he arranges springs of holly and miniature gingerbread houses on all the tables. It makes you want to lay him out on the couch and kiss his breath away, to taste the frosting he's been stealing spoonfuls of while he cooks and breathe in the slightly musty smell of his cologne mixed with the scent of old cardboard and dusty decorations. But that would be inappropriate, so you just warm the back of his neck with your lips and he sighs, nothing but pure contentment audible in the sound.

Black Friday is hell; it always is. The tender moments spent together getting the store ready are the only thing keeping you from throttling him, and as the day progresses he becomes more and more high strung, making sure that the part-timers all get their scheduled breaks and lunches without taking any for himself. He hasn't slept, and neither have you, so by the time the store closes (early, thank god) he's gone in the back and cried from frustration at the downright rude customers and frazzled employees and the fact that he ran out of cookies before the day was even half over.

Neither of you speak on the way home; he's exhausted and glassy eyed, hair limp with sweat, and you feel absolutely disgusting and frustrated and fed up with absolutely everyone. It's not an awkward silence, but one that's thick with emotion; you both love what you do, but sometimes it sucks. A lot. Once shut back in the house, he puts the cushions back on the couch while you put the casserole you'd prepared earlier in to the oven, setting the timer with a bit of a delay since you'll both want to shower before you eat.

It ends up being a good thing that you gave yourself so much time, because when you go to the bedroom to lay down and wait for him to finish, he opens the door with steam spilling out and crooks a finger with a shy expression on his face that makes you follow without hesitation. For such a small house, the shower is surprisingly big, and your height allows you to keep the water off his face when you press him against the warm tiles, kissing slow and languid like you wanted to do when he was shaking all the snow globes before setting them on the bookshelf at the shop. He responds just as eagerly as he always does, like the sensations are still new, like your fingers brushing against his hipbones still thrills him as much as it did the first time you touched him five years ago.

His fingers grip your hair too easily, winding and twisting in the long strands in a way that reminds you that you really ought to get it cut sometime soon. His water-slick skin slides against your own, and despite the exhaustion pressing heavy against the back of your eyes, you hold him close, lips brushing against his long, short, than long again, wanting nothing more than the careful flick of his tongue against your and the way his breath puffs against your face whenever you draw away, grey eyes lidded and heavy with passion.

Making love in the shower is one of your favorite things in the world; the warmth, the closeness, the vulnerability and domesticity of it all. Sure, you love the king sized bed with it's ridiculously soft sheets and thick comforter that smells like lavender and laundry detergent, but the way Eridan looks with his hair hanging in wet curls around his face, eyelashes laden with tiny droplets that sparkle in the light and wet skin slipping against yours in a way that makes your body feel like it's on fire, is one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen.

He bares his throat to you, head falling back against the tiles with a dull thud as you lift his leg to wrap around your waist, sliding your erection to rub against that place behind his balls, slick with water and so warm. Penetrative sex in the shower is messy, and after you nearly fell and knocked yourself out against the sliding door, you decided it would be best to find another alternative. Just rubbing between his legs, warm and wet and just barely enough friction, feels better than it probably should, but the teasing movements and your hand around him makes him positively quiver with desire, and that alone would be enough to get you off.

So you rub him just the way you know he likes it, a slow stroke up, running your thumb across the tip until he keens, hips jerking from overstimulation, before you stroke slowly back down. His sporadic movements have you panting in his ear, desperate, aborted little sounds falling from your lips because you never really got the hang of being as vocal as him, are too embarrassed of how your voice cracks with pleasure to let him know just how good you feel. But every choked off moan and catch of your breath has him bucking and clutching at the back of your neck, the fact that someone usually so stoic is making any sort of noise because of him, for him, driving him absolutely mad.

"Eridan-" you force out from between clenched teeth and he yanks your head back, baring your face to his eyes, lip caught between his teeth and gaze unflinching. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that he loves more than watching you come. It embarrassed the fire out of you, still kind of does, that he's not satisfied with anything you do unless he can see your face as you lose yourself in his body. You used to be self-conscious about it, the way your whole face screws up in the most terrible grimace, mouth hanging open as your breath catches and releases in bursts. But he loves it, unabashedly, so you give it to him as you tense and shudder and coat his thighs and the wall behind him.

He comes on your stomach, your fist gripping him tight while the tip of your thumb rubs little circles against the tip, and the constant stimulation of the sensitive head has him practically sobbing with it as his hands twitch against your shoulders and hold you close, so close you can feel his heart thudding wildly against his ribcage and his chest heaving. The water is still warm against your back as you tuck him under your chin, waiting for the shakes to subside so you can wash each other and stumble in to bed to sleep for a solid sixteen hours.

The rest of the holidays are easier. Weekends are hectic, but the Santa hats and ugly Christmas sweaters worn by all the employees make it more bearable, even if Eridan makes you wear reindeer antlers and puts Christmas stickers on all your Portal shirts. It's warm in the shop, in a way that feels like home, and it's beautifully decorated and all the employees put ornaments with their names amongst the branches on the tree and Eridan feeds you gingerbread when you have to work through your breaks, grinning when you nip at his fingertips and turning red with rage when you wipe icing on his nose.

Just like every Christmas, it's perfect in it's own way.

And like every year, the week before Christmas you close up shop early, pulling all the chairs in a semi-circle as all the employees cradle mugs of a hot drink of their choosing, brightly wrapped presents sitting in a messy pile in front of the tree. The entire store participates in a White Elephant every year, and it's another thing you didn't think you'd enjoy but end up regarding with a fond look as Eridan tucks against you on the couch.

Tavros ends up with Roxy's gift, a fancy martini glass decorated in reds and greens and gaudy golds. Roxy unwraps Dave's, a mix CD with a truly impressive mix of terrible Christmas songs done by musicians you didn't even know put out Christmas albums; she's beside herself with happiness and declares it won't leave her car's CD player for the rest of the holiday season. Dave selects Aranea's present, which is a collection of holiday stories and legends from all over the world; it's not quite up his alley, but he promises to at least give the book a look through before putting it on the bookshelf at the shop for everyone else to read. Aranea ends up with Kankri's gift, which is a whistle just like it always is, something of an inside joke between the employees, and it makes her laugh before putting it happily around her neck. Kankri opens your present, which is a terrible Christmas tie that sings "Jingle Bells" and lights up when you press the button, and he looks simultaneously delighted and appalled so you count it as a successful gift. You open Tavros's gift which is a hand-knit scarf in neutral grey, so long that you have to wrap it around your neck twice but so soft and intricately put together that you don't care, it's fabulous.

By then, it's Eridan's turn, and there's only one large box left. It's huge, wrapped in plain red paper with one hilariously undersized green bow tucked in one corner. He looks puzzled, pulling the paper aside and using his house key to cut the packing tape on the large cardboard box. It's filled to the brim with packing peanuts, and upon sticking his hand inside the box he can't immediately find anything. Scowling at the amused whispers from the employees, he sticks both hands in the styrofoam wonderland, letting out a little "a-HA!" when his fingers close around the tiny box hidden towards the back corner.

The box he pulls out is a deep green velvet, and there's a slow look of comprehension on his face as he opens it with trembling hands. The band is braided gold, twisting elegantly to hold the three diamonds, the marquise cut in the middle slightly larger than the round cut ones framing it. The ring glints in the light of the Christmas tree, and his eyes are damp as he looks at you, lips pressed tight together in an attempt to keep himself together.

"Yeah?" you say softly, because you don't need to say anything else. He knows. He sees it every day in the way you wake him up with raspberries against the back of his neck and rub his feet when he's had a particularly hard day. He sees it in the way you hold him at night, with your body wrapped around his and your nose in his hair, and the way you bring him coffee while he ices scones in the kitchen. He sees it in your smile, in your frown, in your laugh, in your anger and your happiness and everything you've felt since you met him in the library five years ago.

"Yeah," he whispers back, and Tavros is crying embarrassingly hard and Roxy lets out a whoop of happiness, but you block them all out as you slip the ring on to his finger and pull him close, kissing him the way you plan to kiss him for the rest of your life; with everything you have.


End file.
